


we poured mud through their veins

by deepestfathoms



Series: mud!verse (Deetz-Maitland + Jockey family unit) [1]
Category: Beetlejuice - All Media Types, Beetlejuice - Perfect/Brown & King
Genre: Anxiety, Blood and Injury, Chronic Pain, F/M, Family Dynamics, Family Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-21 19:55:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30027033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deepestfathoms/pseuds/deepestfathoms
Summary: The Deetz-Maitland house has been conjoined for almost a year now and everyone apart of the intersected family is happy. Surely one more otherwordly member couldn't hurt!
Relationships: Beetlejuice & Charles Deetz & Delia Deetz & Lydia Deetz & Adam Maitland & Barbara Maitland, Beetlejuice & Lydia Deetz, Beetlejuice/Adam Maitland/Barbara Maitland, Lydia Deetz & Jockey
Series: mud!verse (Deetz-Maitland + Jockey family unit) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2214129
Comments: 6
Kudos: 13





	1. never whip a thoroughbred

**Author's Note:**

> everyone calls the Jockey "Presley" so i'm going to be calling her that, too!

The sky was the color of the ocean- dark, wild, and swallowing everything in its wake. The only thing that could possibly rival its impenetrable wall of thick black-blue were the occasional cracks of blazing lightning that split the roiling clouds like a hot knife. The storm would be cut in half at the flash of its searing glory, then sewed itself back together like a monstrous, watery wound. The wind was so fierce that it seemed to be sent by an enraged being (in which Delia would helpfully say it was “God” or “angels playing bowling”) to punish Winter River for some unruly sin. Water rushed down the streets like baby rivers, threatening to drag anything and anyone in its way down the asphalt with it. Raindrops battered windows and walls and doors, knocking so viciously like an unwanted guest.

An unwanted guest. That was what this damn storm was. And Lydia was at her wit’s end with this elemental stranger.

Her computer crashed for the third time and she finally slammed the lid close, letting out a miserable groan that was soon challenged by a deep rumble of thunder. She cringed, curling her shoulders in, and then sighed.

“Fuck this storm,” She growled.

“Language,” Barbara said from the kitchen.

“Sorry,” Lydia muttered. “ _ Screw  _ this storm.”

Barbara chuckled lovingly. “Better.” She peered over at the closed laptop. “Everything okay?”

“It keeps crashing,” Lydia said miserably. “And I’m finally not procrastinating on doing my essay!”

“You had an essay due?” Adam looked at Lydia sharply, yanking his head out from the spice cabinet.

Lydia smiled innocently. “Maaaybe,” She said. She noticed the stern expression on Adam’s face. “Hey, I’m doing it! So don’t worry!”

“Hmm,” Adam squinted at her suspiciously. “Seems like you planned this.”

“What? Me? Never!” Lydia said.

Barbara laughed again and then turned back to the pot she was stirring. “What’s your essay on?”

“Well, my English class needed to write something that had to do with society or the ecosystem,” Lydia explained. “So I chose to do mine on why the eighth amendment should be abolished!”

Barbara and Adam blinked at her proud expression.

“Reason?” Adam asked.

“If we don’t have the eighth amendment, then we can torture rapists,” Lydia said confidently.

Barbara and Adam then nodded in agreement.

It had been nine months since the whole incident with the ghosts, and it was honestly some of the best months of Lydia’s entire life. Not only did the Maitlands officially become part of the family, but Beetlejuice stuck around, too, becoming Lydia’s chaotic best friend and older brother figure, at least after being properly “housebroken” as her father would describe it. Waking up each morning always greeted her with new mayhem from one of the otherworldly tenants and more things she could learn about them. It was incredible.

They were a family.

“It’s really coming down out there.”

Lydia looked over her shoulder to see Delia standing at the back door, sipping a steaming cup of her weird herbal tea (which tasted disgusting, by the way). 

“It’s what you would call ‘Noah’s Arc’,” Barbara said knowingly. Except her ‘knowledgeable’ comment got a weird look from Lydia and a laugh from Adam and Delia.

“Noah’s Arc was the, well, arc, honey,” Adam said. “Not the storm. But nice try.”

“It’s so foggy,” Delia commented. “The river may flood at this rate.”

Foggy.

Fog.

That word always sparked a memory in Lydia’s mind.

The Netherworld.

Lydia remembered the Netherworld clearly. 

The air there had been wet and heavy, like she was breathing in a thick fog that stuck to her throat like tar. There was a certain sticky humidity in that dark place, pressing down on her in heavy waves, as if the very atmosphere itself was trying to crush her skull, punishing her for even plucking up the courage to step foot in the place where the Living didn’t belong. It was cold, yet uncomfortably warm at the same time, with no wind blowing to ease the mild heat that had settled its oppressive, sultry murk over the Dead’s civilization. It spilled into every street, every alleyway, every house that dared to open the window, thinking that it would help with the clamminess that fogged their home, but to no avail.

This, of course, had brought upon complete and utter dreariness that coated every Dead making their rounds through their daily lives. And, in reaction to her presence, the gloom tried to wrap its dark protections of the underworld around her in layers that pressed deeply into her skin, trying to become a part of her. It adorned her until she was nearly suffocated in the thick, moist air. 

She did not belong there.

The Netherworld had been filled with enough freaks to make a whole circus- a suicidal beauty pageant queen with slashed open wrists, a failed skydiver in a shredded jumpsuit, a lady swathed in a smoldering towel and had hair crackling hair that hugged a toaster to her chest, a charred man who breathed smoke like a great fire dragon, a very confused football player, a man with a huge cleaver lodged in his skull as a sign of his infidelity, a gravely-injured jockey that spit blood when she talked, some kind of hunter with a shrunken head, and a very excitable victim of explosion, among many more that Lydia hadn’t seen. Not that she was surprised at the amount of strange characters in the underworld.

Aside from the beauty pageant queen, the jockey was the Dead that Lydia got to know the most. Even for the short amount of time she was down in the Netherworld , the jockey seemed to grow attached to her, talking to her animatedly as if they had been friends for years and hanging onto her arm like a baby koala would to its mother. She learned that her name was Presley.

And Lydia had to leave Presley behind.

It wasn’t because she wanted to- she had to! Presley said it herself: the living didn’t belong in the Netherworld. But still, it kinda hurt to leave her new friend behind.

But she got over it. And she moved on. And she got a new family that made her completely forget about the undead horse rider.

Lydia’s memories were then interrupted by a terrible crash of thunder that seemed to rip the entire town in half. The sound rang in all of their ears, even causing Lydia to snap her hands up to cover her own, much to her embarrassment, and making Adam phase straight into the drywall of the kitchen in reaction to the shock, and the sonic boom that followed rocked the house from side-to-side.

As the rumble faded and the lights overhead flickered, there was a heavy thud from upstairs.

From Lydia’s room.

Lydia groaned. “That’ll probably be Beej,” She said. “Messing with my stuff. Again. Probably thought the thunder could cover up the sound of him setting some kind of prank.” She turned her head to yell up the staircase as she stood up. “But not this time!”

She heard Barbara, Adam, and Delia laugh as she walked upstairs.

As quietly as possible, Lydia snuck up the stairs and to her bedroom. Inside, she could hear shuffling and a muttering voice.

Someone was in there.

Wanting to scare Beetlejuice for trying to prank her again, she grasped the doorknob, slowly pushed open the door, and peeked in at the demon in her bedroom.

The light from the lamp that she had left on fed into his white and red suit, soaking into the filthy fabric. He kept looking this way and that, the helmet he was wearing shifting against his head, and-- that was not Beetlejuice.

But Lydia did know this person.

White-and-red checkered shirt, white pants, gloves, black riding boots, a helmet with a crack straight down the middle, a crop holstered to narrow hips, old blood and hoofprints all over…

“Presley?!” Lydia yelped out loud, then quickly shut her mouth. She stepped fully into her room and closed the door behind her. A moment later, the undead jockey was in her arms, clinging to her in a way that felt more like how a drowning woman to cling to the side of a boat than a normal hug between reuniting friends.

Except she didn’t  _ feel _ undead. She felt warm, solid, real…living.

She was living.

But…that shouldn’t have been possible.

“Presley…” Lydia said slowly. “How are you here?”

Presley looked up at her, the rim of her helmet sliding into her eyes slightly, then glanced all around. When she turned her head back up to Lydia, she seemed equally as confused. There was a stream of dried blood trickling down between her eyes and on one side of her nose. There was another scoring her right temple. 

“I don’t-- I don’t know,” Presley whispered, and her voice was hoarse and weak. She then sucked in a sharp breath and coughed. Lydia realized this must have been the first time she had breathed in a long while.

“Well, that’s…confusing…” Lydia said. She batted Presley backwards so she would be away from the door. Presley clung onto her arm with one hand like it was her lifeline. “I thought you were dead? Like,  _ really dead? _ ”

“Yeah…” Presley shifted. “I would know.”

Lydia laughed slightly. “What happened?  _ How  _ did this happen?”

Presley shrugged helplessly. “Your guess is as good as mine. I was just sitting in my room, crying, as I usually am, and then I fell asleep and now I’m here!” She looked around. “Nice room, by the way.”

“Thanks,” Lydia said. She glanced at her door. “Okay, well…” She ran a hand through her hair. “This…will cause some issues.”

“Oh.”

Presley took a shuffling step backwards and unholstered her crop, which she began to fidget with nervously. Lydia thought it was strange- wasn’t that the thing that basically caused her untimely demise? How could she be comfortable with even having it on her person after that?

“Sorry…”

“Hey, it’s not your fault,” Lydia assured her. “How were you supposed to know that you were going to…come back to life?”

“Heh. Yeah.” Presley smiled slightly at her, which then turned into a grimace of pain. “May I sit down?”

“Yeah, of course,” Lydia said, and Presley instantly dropped down to her knees. Her breathing came out strained and ragged. “Are you alright?”

Presley gave her a weak smile, and there was blood in her teeth and blood on her lips and blood on her tongue. “Yeah, yeah… I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?” Lydia prodded, crouching down in front of her. “You don’t look so good.”

“Well, you know how I died,” Presley said, sitting up from her hunched position. She pressed a hand against the left side of her ribs, wincing. “Wasn’t exactly very, ahh, pretty…” She swallowed.

“Your wounds didn’t heal after you came back to life?” Lydia said. “I guess that’s what we’re calling this. But you didn’t get a fresh new start?”

Presley shook her head. She unbuttoned her jockey uniform and opened up one flap, the cloth making a disgusting peeling sound as it detached from her skin, to reveal the dark black abyss that was her trampled chest. Looking at it, even in the lamp’s golden glow, Lydia couldn’t tell where one wound ended and another wound began. They were all- the bruises and the lacerations and the welts and the hoofprints- melted into one big blemish of agony upon the young jockey’s torso. For a moment, Lydia didn’t even see that she had a sports bra on because the fabric (it had been grey, once upon a time) was completely soaked in blood and blending in with the rest of the mess. 

“Unfortunately, no,” Presley closed her shirt. “I suppose it’s a fair trade. Being brought back for a second chance at life, but I have to live with the effects of how I died in the first one. Actually, that isn’t as fair as I thought. My internal organs had definitely been ruptured when--” She stopped talking and looked down at her stomach grimly.

“Well, that…sucks,” Lydia said. She glanced at her door again. How was she going to explain this to her family?

“Lydia!”

And speaking of the devils… 

Lydia turned back to Presley. “Ready to meet my family?”

Presley perked up. “Really?”

“You don’t exactly have anywhere else to go,” Lydia said. “And you’re here, aren’t you? One more supernatural being living in our house won’t hurt!”

Presley tilted her head, and her helmet slumped over on her skull with the movement. “There are others?”

Lydia grinned. “Yep,” She said. “I got pretty much the coolest family.”

“Lydia!”

“Coming!” Lydia called back to the voice yelling for her. She looked back at Presley. “I’m going to go talk to them first. I’ll call down for you once they’re ready. Just be cool, okay? They’ll like you.”

At least, she hoped they would. Presley didn’t have anywhere else to go if they didn’t.

Delia, Barbara, Adam, and Charles, who had emerged from his office, were all assembled downstairs, preparing for dinner. Barbara smiled at Lydia when she came down.

“Did you find BJ?” Barbara asked. 

“How long did it take to dismantle the prank?” Adam asked, sounding amused.

“What prank?” Beetlejuice materialized beside Charles, nearly making him drop the bowl of spaghetti he had been carrying to the table. He looked at him. “Sorry, Chuck.” He looked back at Lydia. “Now, what about a prank?”

All eyes turned to Lydia, and Lydia couldn’t help but feel like she was being interrogated, which was weird because she hadn’t done anything wrong. The ghost of a jockey who got killed during a race appearing in her bedroom as a living person wasn’t her fault! That was nobody’s fault!

“It turns out there was no prank,” Lydia said.

“Then what fell?” Delia asked.

“Yeah, about that…” Lydia glanced up the staircase. She faintly saw Presley hovering in the hallway. “Remember that one time we went to the Netherworld?”

“Yes,” Charles said. “It was the worst place ever.”

“Oh god,” Beetlejuice said. “Is this another lecture? I already said I’m sorry!”

“No, no, this isn’t about that,” Lydia said quickly. “While I was there, I met this girl. We kinda became friends, but, you know, I had to come back here so I haven’t seen her since.”

“Where is this going?” Adam asked, looking curious and slightly concerned.

“What if I told you guys that my friend came back to life somehow and appeared in my bedroom for no real rhyme or reason but now she’s here and has nowhere else to go?”

The house went quiet. Thunder rumbled outside, as if the very universe itself were laughing about the situation.

And then--

“WHAT?” Adam yelped.

“That can happen?” Delia said at the same time, looking at Beetlejuice.

“I guess!” Beetlejuice yelled.

“Wait, so there’s someone in our house right now?” Charles asked.

“Surprise!” Lydia said weakly. She looked up the staircase. “You can come down now.”

There was shuffling from upstairs; Presley emerged into the light of the open stairwell and staggered her way down the stairs, each step she took being punctuated by a wince. There were several gasps, mainly from Barbara, Delia, and Adam, as she stopped next to Lydia- not that Lydia blamed her family for their reactions.

Presley looked much,  _ much  _ worse in full lightning. Her skin was no longer pale pink like it had been in the Netherworld, rather just pale, as if all the blood was drained from her body and leaving her as an empty shell. Even her lips were completely leached of color. It was impossible to tell if the dark rings around her eyes were from sleep deprivation or were just shiners caused by her death. Her jockey uniform was slathered in a thick caking of mud--and then Lydia realized most of that was just dried blood. Black hoofprints were stamped up and down her chest, stomach, and legs, and some areas of the fabric were ripped, revealing grimy, bruised, and bloodied flesh underneath. The streams of blood down her face and side of her head were completely dried now, crusted over and flaking off. She was squeezing her crop nervously, bright hazel eyes darting everywhere around the house, but she quickly latched onto Lydia’s arm with one of her hands, holding on tightly, similarly to how she did down in the Netherworld when they first met.

“Everyone…” Lydia said to her gaping family. “Meet Presley!”


	2. don't look a gift horse in the mouth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Lydia's new friend is questioned and Presley is too polite for her own good

Lydia  _ did not  _ like the way her family was looking at Presley, and she could tell Presley felt the same way by the way she tightened her grip on her arm nervously. Nobody said anything in reaction to the new arrival, so Lydia felt like she had to fill the silence with words of her own. She decided to try to speak to her friend this time.

“Presley, this is my family,” Lydia said, then began naming everyone, pointing to them respectively as she went. “That’s my dad, Charles, and my step-mom, Delia. Those are my ghost parents, Barbara and Adam. And that’s--”

“Beetlejuice,” Presley whispered.

“Yeah,” Lydia nodded.

“When you said you have otherworldly people living in your house, this was not what I thought you meant,” Presley said. Her voice was very quiet, as if she were afraid she would be yelled at for talking loudly. Or perhaps she was just shy, which seemed very likely given how timid she was.

Lydia laughed slightly. “Yeah, it’s a bit strange. But we all fit together just fine! We make do. Lemons, lemonade- however that goes.” She looked back at her family. “Presley is my friend. She’s really nice. I’m sure you guys will like her.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Presley smile bashfully.

“Lydia,” Charles said. “A word, please.”

“I’ll be back,” Lydia said to Presley, then gently slid her hand off of her arm and walked over to her family. They all bustled into the kitchen and began to talk, even though they were still very much in earshot of Presley.

“Lydia, what were you thinking?” Charles hissed.

“I didn’t resurrect her!” Lydia flared. “She just showed up!”

“It doesn’t matter how she got here,” Adam said. “She’s here now and we need to figure out something to do with her.”

“She isn’t a dog, Adam,” Beetlejuice said. “We can’t just send her to the pound. At least, I don’t think we can. Can we?”

“That isn’t what I meant!” Adam blustered.

“Is she okay?”

Everyone looked at Barbara, then at Presley. 

The young jockey was still standing on the final step on the staircase where Lydia had left her, looking all around the house. She kept fiddling with her crop, flicking it back and forth in her hand as some sort of nervous tick. When she accidentally made eye contact with the gawking group, she yanked her head away so fast her helmet twisted out of place and she had to readjust it.  She must have felt pressured to say something when they continued to stare because she said aloud, “Your house is very pretty.”

“Thank you, Presley,” Lydia said to her. Then, to the group, “She’s harmless.”

“She’s  _ harmed _ ,” Barbara said. “What-- what  _ happened  _ to her?”

Lydia stole another glance at the young jockey, who was now rocking back and forth on her heels--only to grimace and latch onto the railing of the staircase when pain seemed to shoot up her legs. She tentatively touched her thigh with a dirty, glove-covered hand like she was making sure the femur wasn’t sticking out or something, then started looking around again. Lydia looked back at her family.

“She was killed during a race,” Lydia said. “She used to be a jockey and whipped her thoroughbred while running, which sent it into a frenzy. She got trampled to death.”

Barbara, Adam, and Delia all got matching horrified-worried expressions on their faces. Beetlejuice let out an impressed whistle. Charles looked shocked and disturbed at the gruesome revelation.

“What an awful way to go out,” Delia whispered, giving Presley a sympathetic look. “Poor thing.”

“You two got lucky,” Beetlejuice put in helpfully to Adam and Barbara.

“Really lucky,” Adam agreed. He seemed to be trying to imagine what it would be like to be caught underneath a herd of heavily-muscled race horses going over his body at over forty miles per hour and shuddered.

“That’s all I really know about her,” Lydia went on. “She didn’t tell me much when I first met her, aside from that and her name. I don’t think she likes talking about it.”

“I can see why,” Adam blew out a breath.

“Lydia?” Presley called over meekly. 

“Yeah?” Lydia looked over to her.

“May I sit down?”

“Presley, you don’t have to ask me permission to sit down. You can do whatever you want.”

“…But may I?” 

Lydia sighed. “Yeah, go ahead.”

“Okay, thank you,” Presley said, and then sat down on the last step of the staircase.

Lydia looked back at her family. “She’s polite!”

“How is she even  _ alive? _ ” Charles asked, looking Presley up and down. “The blood--”

“Being Dead can be kinda hard to explain at times,” Beetlejuice informed. “BASICALLY you can still feel the pain of how you died. And your body can continue to do  _ some  _ functions, hence why Adam can cry real tears at Disney movies and Miss Horse Girl over there--”

“Presley,” Lydia said.

“ _ Presley _ ,” Beetlejuice corrected, “looks so freshly bloodied. She was probably still able to bleed all throughout her afterlife. And, MAN, that must have sucked!”

Presley looked over at them in confusion at Beetlejuice’s rise in volume. The others hissed at him to be quiet. 

“I don’t understand the afterlife at all,” Delia said.

“Yeah, it can be very confusing sometimes,” Beetlejuice nodded.

“Okay, but my concern still stands,” Charles spoke back up. “Look at her. She looks like she got run over. Literally. How do we know she’s not going to keel over at any moment and then we’ll have the dead body of some random girl on our hands?”

“Well, if nobody knows who she is or that she’s even here, then we can just bury her in the back--”

“NO!!” 

Presley looked over at them again. Beetlejuice huffed and crossed his arms. 

“You guys are no fun.”

“We should probably take a look at her,” Barbara said. “See how badly she’s hurt. Bathe her and get her some new clothes. If she is still injured, she shouldn’t be wallowing in all that filth. She’ll get an infection.”

“I’ll help you,” Delia said.

“You both are going to bathe an unknown child you don’t even know?” Charles looked disbelieving. “She’s a stranger.”

“She’s also a child, as you said,” Delia said. “She’s hurting. She needs--”

“I really don’t want to be a bother.”

They all turned to look at Presley, who was looking back at them with an apprehensive expression on her face. She rose to her feet, which made pain flash across her face when she did so, but she ignored it. 

“I can go.”

“Go?” Lydia echoed. “Go where? There’s nowhere for you  _ to go _ .”

Presley opened her mouth, then closed it. She didn’t seem to know what to say, so she just settled for a shrug. 

“Presley--” Lydia took a step towards her.

“I could kill myself.”

“No!” Lydia shouted, eyes going wide. “Presley, don’t.”

“Why not?” Presley tilted her head. “You said it yourself- there’s nowhere else for me to go. And I really don’t want to bother you and your family. Besides, I already know where I’m going to go when I die. Nothing is going to change. But maybe the pain from how I die this time will override the pain of how I died the first time. Oh, that would be great! Do you know how much it hurts to live with internal bleeding that  _ never goes away?  _ I swear, somedays I think it would be better to just let my guts out and  _ leave them out  _ for good . Like, if they want out so badly, why not let them? Not my problem! I shouldn’t have to fight with my own small intestines while trying to do my job, which I STILL don’t understand. I never asked to--” She then caught the stares they all were giving her and snapped her mouth shut. She cleared her throat. “Umm-- Sorry-- I-I’ll just go now.”

“Presley, wait!” Lydia called after her.

But Presley was already hurrying towards the front door.

And when she turned around, a giant crater in the back of her helmet was revealed to all of them. 

An entire piece had been broken off completely, most likely from either getting stepped on or kicked by one of the horses, displaying a tangled red mess to their eyes. For a moment, Lydia thought Presley was a ginger, and then she realized that was blood matted in her hair.

Adam’s resulting sickened noise perfectly exhibited how they all felt.

Presley opened the door and began to walk out--

\--only to be stopped by the storm raging outside. 

She stared out at the furious tempest for a moment, then stepped back, shut the door, and turned to them.

“It’s raining.”

“Looks like you’re stuck with us, kid,” Beetlejuice smirked toothily.

Presley shuffled her feet. “I  _ really  _ don’t want to bother anyone.”

“You won’t,” Lydia assured her. She walked over and offered Presley her hand. Presley took it eagerly. “And if anyone asks you can be my…”

“Second-cousin!” Adam offered.

“Second-cousin, yeah!” Lydia nodded.

“Adam!” Charles gave the ghost a betrayed look.

“What?” Adam held his hands up. “I have a soft spot for kids! Especially girl kids! That sounded wrong.”

“Come on, Adam, didn’t we have an entire lecture on creepy old men a few months ago,” Beetlejuice said.

“I didn’t mean it like that!!”

Presley laughed at their bickering. And then coughed. And then that cough built up into another cough, and then another cough, and then another, and then another, and then another, until she had to pull away from Lydia to cover her mouth with her hand. Adam and Beetlejuice instantly stopped playfully arguing with each other to watch on with concerned expressions, as did Lydia, Delia, Barbara, and even Charles. After a moment, the coughing fit tapered off, and Presley pulled her hand away from her mouth.

There was fresh blood on the glove she wore.

“Well, would you look at that,” Presley said, trying to joke. There was blood on the sides of her mouth. “My lungs still bleed!” She laughed weakly and wiped her hand on her already-soiled racing trousers. “Sorry.”

“Are you alright?” Delia asked, sounding very worried. Her Mom Side was starting to come out.

“I’m fine,” Presley answered quickly enough for it to be suspicious. “It’s not as bad as it sounds.” She looked down at herself. “Or looks.”

Beetlejuice snorted. “Riiight,” He said. “And I’m not hitting on two different people at once, both of which are married to each other. Uh-huh. Totally, kid.”

“Really,” Presley said, narrowing her eyes at him, which Lydia was surprised she even did given how anxious she was. “I died quickly. I fell off and then the--” She struggled for a moment, which was enough evidence proving that she hadn’t died instantly and didn’t remember a thing from the experience. “The-- the  _ horse _ kicked me in the head and I was dead. See, quick! Fast! Painless! All this other stuff happened  _ after  _ I died and just lingered on my body into the afterlife because the universe hates me. Probably because my family was wealthy. You know, ‘eat the rich’ and all that.”

“Then why did you say you were in constant pain earlier?” Charles asked, and Lydia could tell he was getting interested, now.

“I lied.” Presley said. 

“And why would you do that?”

“…Attention?”

“What about That Thing you showed me in my bedroom?” Lydia hopped on the interrogation bandwagon. Although she didn’t really enjoy this method of getting Presley to open up, she could tell her new friend was as stubborn as a mule when it came to letting people help her.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Lydia crossed her arms. “You literally showed me deliberately. On your own accord.”

“I didn’t think you would tell anyone!” Presley hissed.

“Show them.” Lydia said.

“What? No, that’s weird!”

“Presley,” Barbara stepped in, and her tender, soothing voice was enough to snag Presley’s full attention. Lydia had to bite back a giggle; it seemed it was a universal thing to be drawn to Barbara’s Mom Aura like a moth to a flame. “It’s okay, honey. We want to help you.”

Presley looked at her, then the others, and then nervously at Lydia. Lydia nodded to her. She sighed and finally gave in.

“WOAH,” Beetlejuice yelled when Presley began to unbutton her jockey uniform. “Kid, did you not hear me literally a few minutes ago? We’ve already had the talk about creepy old guys!”

Presley’s face immediately flushed red. Lydia marched over to Beetlejuice and punched him in the arm.

“She isn’t flashing us, you weirdo!” 

“Oh,” Beetlejuice said. “Right. Of course. Carry on!”

Lydia had to nod to Presley again, but Presley finally undid enough buttons for her to pull back one side to show off her heavily bruised chest.

And, like before, like her body had been, it looked much worse in full light.

What Lydia had thought was black was actually a deep, dark purple that seemed to fade into multi-colored waves like an oil spill upon her chest. Now, Lydia could see the different bruises, which were splashed on top of each other like a mess of spilled paint. There were a few nicks and cuts, all inflamed with scarlet around the edges and packed with dirt that had been there for god knows how long, but the worst had to be the angry red hoofprint on her collarbone, seething pus down her chest. 

Presley quickly buttoned her shirt back up, not meeting anyone’s eyes.

“It’s  _ really  _ not that bad,” She said.

“Oh, you poor thing!”

Delia raced over to Presley, which made the young jockey take a wary step back. Presley began to fidget with her crop again.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart,” Delia said. “You don’t have to live like this any longer! We--” She looked around. “Barbara, get over here and Mom with me.”

Barbara hurried over. 

“ _ We _ ,” Delia went on, “will help you.” She smiled warmly. “You’re in good hands.”

Presley blinked up at her in shock, then glanced at Lydia. Lydia laughed and nodded to her, giving her permission for whatever she felt she needed permission for.

“O-okay,” Presley stammered.

“Wonderful,” Delia said. “Come on. We’re going to start by getting you out of those clothes and into something more comfortable.”

“Tell me, Presley,” Barbara said as she and Delia began herding the young jockey towards the stairs. “How long has it been since you had a hot bath?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next time: horse girl gets a bath


	3. you can lead a horse to water

_ “When you become a mother, Barbara, the first time you hold your child, you will feel this huge rush of love… It’s overwhelming, overpowering, yet so beautiful… You forget what just happened and all you care about is the life resting in your arms.” _

_ “You’re getting sappy again, Mama.” _

_ “I know I am. But one day I hope you’ll get to feel that love.” _

Barbara  recalled the old memory from when she was still a girl, her mother’s honey-like voice echoing in her mind. She had always wanted to be a mom, even back then. Despite her worries over the disasters of parenthood, she never wanted anything more than to cradle a baby of her own in her arms.

Falling through the floorboards of her house and dying upon impact with the ground underneath sorta kinda ground those dreams to a complete halt.

Of all things she never got to do, not being able to be a parent probably hit the hardest once she realized she was dead. It was a crushing revelation that threw her heart directly into a meat grinder and mashed it up into a pulpy mess of disappointment and despair.

And then Lydia came along and the meat grinder was reversed and her heart was fixed again!

Lydia truly was a blessing. She may not have been a baby, nor was she of Barbara’s own flesh and blood, but she was perfect. She was Barbara’s daughter, whether Lydia knew it or not, and Barbara loved her with every inch of her undead being.

But never did she think she would be able to get ANOTHER child! 

Not that she was already seeing the little jockey that appeared out of nowhere in her house as her own kid. No way. That would be absurd!

Still. It was just a Mom Instinct to be concerned over her. Especially with all of the blood she was covered in.

Presley was sitting obediently on the toilet lid while Barbara filled the bathtub up with hot water. They were in the master bathroom, seeing as it had the most space and the biggest bathtub for them to use. A myriad of supplies for the washing process had been gathered up, including, but not limited to: four different types of soap, two different brands of shampoo, sponges, rags, a cup for pouring water, a back scrubber, several different kinds of brushes, antiseptic, the entire first aid kit, towels, scissors, and a scented candle that smelled like island driftwood (because apparently soggy ocean wood had a smell good enough to become an air freshener) flickering on the counter. Barbara kept eyeing the first aid kit in particular, occasionally stealing a glance at Presley every once and awhile. This would be the first time she would actually use one, and she was using it to clean a child’s wounds, no less.

This was certainly going to be an experience.

Delia entered the bathroom, holding a stack of folded clothing. “These are Lydia’s clothes, but they should fit you,” She said to Presley.

Presley nodded. “You guys can just spray me down with a hose or something,” She said. “You really don’t have to do this.”

Delia laughed. “You’re funny.”

“It’s no trouble,” Barbara said.

Presley got an expression on her face that screamed “I beg to differ.” She didn’t reply, however, and just fell silent again.

When the bathtub was full, Barbara looked at the young jockey. “Alright,” She said. “It’s time to get all that,” She gestured up and down at the stained uniform, “off.”

Presley’s pale cheeks turned red, but she obeyed, first taking off her gloves, showing that her hands were surprisingly uninjured aside from some bruising underneath her fingernails, presumably from her fingers being crushed by the horses, then fumbling with the buttons on her shirt. She managed to undo them all and went to take shirt off completely, but stopped with a wince. She swallowed hard, blushing even more.

“Umm--” She sounded supremely uncomfortable. “I’m-- I’m sorry, but--” She shifted, then shamefully admitted, “I can’t…move my arms. Enough to take the shirt off, I mean. I’m sorry.”

Barbara and Delia exchanged worried looks. Delia stepped in quickly.

“Not to worry, sweetheart,” Delia said. “I’ll help you.”

Carefully, as to not hurt the young girl, Delia began to pull off Presley’s shirt for her, which made a wet and incredibly gross peeling sound that reminded Barbara of when someone would stand up after sitting on a leather couch and would have to pry their stuck skin away. When the uniform finally released itself from its longtime host, the full extent of Presley’s injuries were revealed to open eyes.

And they were much,  _ much  _ worse than any of them had been anticipating.

If Presley had looked worrisome when Barbara first saw her, then the removal of most of her clothes only increased that concern tenfold. The few injuries that had been visible when she showed them downstairs were bad enough, but now they could see them in full and they were even darker than Barbara had thought. The skin all along her torso and stomach were splattered with impossibly dark colors that were shaped like starbursts and exploding fireworks. It was the worst on her chest, specifically her left side, and stomach, where blue turned to deep indigo and purple and black. Her left forearm was ringed in a sickening yellow-green color, spotted with red and violet, and her right wrist was the same shade as a ripe eggplant in fall. Smaller bruises dappled her sides in droplets of plum and navy and scarlet, as if someone had spilled permanent paint on her. 

But if that weren’t bad enough…

Abrasions and scrapes and lacerations marred the expanse of Presley’s skin. There was some type of cut for every bruise she had, scored in between the blemishes or slashed out right in the middle of them. Some looked freshly wet, weeping pus and blood, while others were crusted over with her fluids, and several were packed full of dirt and grit that must have come from the track. One injury in particular that really caught Barbara’s eye was a huge, tissue-pink gash split across her lower stomach, so big that there was no way it should have been able to scar over like it was. 

What was it that Presley had said downstairs? Something about her guts always trying to fall out?

Barbara swallowed thickly. No child should be like this.

However, the worst things were the markings.

Hoofprints. All up and down Presley’s small body. Deep, dark black, as if they had been branded into her flesh, inflamed with seething red, and visible even through the bruising. Several of them overlapped each other, but the most severe-looking marks were the one at the center of her stomach, right on top of her ribs on the left side, at her clavicle, on her right shoulder, right arm, and left wrist.

It was awful. Completely awful.

Presley looked away from Barbara and Delia’s incredibly concerned expressions, growing embarrassed. She snaked her arms around her stomach and held it, staring at the floor.

“Ahh--” Barbara found her voice first. “Alright, sweetheart. Think you can take your boots and pants off?”

Presley nodded and leaned down to take off her black leather jockey boots, but only ended up taking in a sharp breath of pain when her wounds seemed to strain in disagreement to her bending spine. Delia eased her back up into a straightened position.

“Don’t worry,” Barbara assured her. “I got it.”

Barbara took off Presley’s boots, then her socks, both of which were filled with dirt and a sludge made from mud and blood that had been there for god knows how long. She used the scissors to cut away the young jockey’s white riding pants and underwear, the latter of which being stiff and covered in so much dried blood that it was impossible to tell what color it used to be. Presley had made a soft noise of protest at this.

“I’m sorry, sweetie,” Barbara said. “It’ll be easier for you if we just cut it off.”

“The clothes aren’t exactly salvageable, anyway,” Delia added.

There were even more wounds on Presley’s legs. More bruises, more cuts, more hoofprints- one injury in particular was on her left thigh and similar to the gash on her lower stomach. The scar tissue was a deeper shade of pink, almost maroon in the light, and ringed with purple and blue. Morbid curiosity filled Barbara when she looked at it- what happened there?

“Barbara, can you pass me the scissors?” Delia asked.

Barbara obliged and handed Delia the scissors. She stood up to see what she was doing and realized Delia was going to use them to cut off Presley’s sports bra. Which seemed to be glued to her body.

Presley’s back was slightly less marred than her front, but not by much. The bruises weren’t completely pitch black and blending into one big mass, rather evenly spaced out along her spine and faintly bleeding with each other, and the amount of visible cuts only made it look like she had rolled around in a thorn bush and not gotten into a fight with an airplane propeller and lost. There were still hoofprints branded in her skin, looking just as bad as the others, but that wasn’t really anything new at this point. What  _ was  _ new, however, was the thick caking of  _ something  _ over Presley’s upper back.

It was-- Barbara didn’t even know what it was. It seemed to be some kind of miasma made from mud, blood, sweat, pus, cerebrospinal fluid, and other disgusting postmortem viscera caused by the gruesome death via trampling. It acted as a plaster of sorts, staining several areas of Presley’s body, and it seemed to be gluing her sports bra to her back from the way it was dried over the grey (at least, Barbara thought it was grey) straps and backstrap. It certainly didn’t help that skin was also clotted in the rips in the fabric, either. 

Carefully, Delia slipped the blades of the scissors beneath the backstrap and cut off the bra. It released its grasp on Presley’s body, but the tar held firmly, so Delia had to gently peel it away, earning several noises of discomfort from Presley.

With all the disgusting, bloodied clothes piled in the sink to be thrown away, all there was left was the helmet. When Barbara reached for the strap, Presley put a hand on the headpiece.

“Can’t I keep it on?” Presley asked, finally making eye contact again. Delia had given her a towel to hug to her chest and drape over her groin to help her conserve at least a little dignity. None of them brought attention to the way it was quickly becoming stained with grime. 

Barbara frowned. “I’m afraid not,” She said gently. “We need to be able to wash your hair.”

Presley shifted, but didn’t protest. “Okay… I’ll take it off.”

“Are you sure?” Delia asked. “If it hurts too much to move--”

“I’ll take it off,” Presley said again. She fumbled with the towel for a moment, not quite knowing how to adjust it properly to where it would conceal her breasts, and then draped it over her shoulder, hoping it would be enough. Then, she undid the strap underneath her chin and took off the helmet she had probably been wearing for a very long time.

Her hair was golden-brown and done up in a bun, which was falling out of its hair tie after all that had happened to her. One side of the back of her head was dark red with dried blood, most likely caused by her being kicked or stepped on by the horse that killed her. She gripped her helmet tightly in her hands, avoiding gazes again.

“Okay, Miss Presley,” Delia said, clapping her hands and making Presley’s shoulders jolt. “Let’s get you in the tub.”

Barbara and Delia turned away so Presley could climb into the bathtub. It was the least they could do, seeing as they already had to be in the same room with her while she was naked even though they just met. But it was better than one of the men washing her, or worse, her doing it herself and probably blacking out from the pain and drowning.

Cleaning Presley proved to be a huge chore. The moment she stepped into the water, an entire layer of filth came off and rested on the surface, meaning that the tub was going to have to be refilled more than once. They also had to work very gently, seeing as how tender her wounds were.

The first thing they did was dump water using the cup over Presley’s shoulders and back and head to wet her for bathing and to try and remove the top layer of grime coating her frame, which only slightly worked. Water ran black or red the moment it hit the young jockey’s skin, streaming in gritty trails down her tender flesh. She shivered. The festering of filth seemed reluctant to part with its host.

Barbara and Delia rolled up their sleeves. This was going to take awhile.

One thing the two of them noticed was how Presley flinched almost every time she was touched, though they didn’t know if it was from the pain or something else. She said no words, she didn’t even face them, she just jumped and jerked, occasionally hissing in between her gritted teeth. 

Just how long had Presley been living like this?

Using a rag that was mixed with coconut-scented soap, Barbara began wiping down the tar-like substance from Presley’s back. It stuck firmly to Presley’s skin for a few seconds, then began crumbling away like dried out mud, revealing more cuts and bruises underneath its dark plaster.

But there was something else, too. Something new. Something that made Barbara’s heart clench inside of her chest.

Aside from the bruises and the contusions and the cuts and the hoofprints, there were scars. Real scars, not like the ones on her stomach and thigh, but real, actual, faded out scars.

Most of them were white, but some were still pink, unable to fully heal before her death. They were long and narrow, and looked like they had been made by a thin object.

It didn’t take a degree in rocket science to know what that object was.

Barbara, thank god, had never been switched before, though she had been threatened with it once or twice when she was younger and doing something that she probably deserved to be punished for doing. To an extent, she, personally, didn’t believe it was abuse. One or two whacks, maybe three depending on the reason, would be enough to get back at a child for being bad. Just a few quick cracks that were light enough to not leave scars and hard enough to be painful, but not painful enough to where it didn’t go away after thirty minutes to an hour.  _ That  _ was discipline. Whatever caused  _ these  _ was not.

Glancing over Presley’s shoulder, she noticed a few more on her inner arms, slightly hidden by bruises and other cuts, but they were there.

Barbara continued her gently, taking this new information into consideration.

The bath water became murky grey-brown-red as more and more mire was removed. It seemed like filth collectively clung to the young jockey over time, even after death, making her horribly dirty. It took around ten minutes just to get all the tar off, though that was mainly because they had to work slowly to keep from aggravating Presley’s wounds, and the water was already blackened. Delia had no problem with pulling the plug and refilling the bathtub. Presley, on the other hand, seemed dismayed over it, probably worrying her caved in little head over the next water bills.

“I can take it from here,” Presley said. “Or I can just get out now. It’s okay.”

“Don’t be silly,” Delia said. “We’re going to finish what we started. Now, relax, dear. You’re in good hands.”

Presley did everything but relax. Tension was rolling through every muscle in her body. She held perfectly still, knees pulled to her chest, as the bathwater rose up around her. Delia decided not to press her on loosening up and went back to grooming with Barbara.

Various kinds of soap and shampoo were used to wash down the young jockey, making the bathroom smell pleasant, despite the rotten, metallic odor that tried to combat it. It took awhile, but, with a tag-teamed effort, Barbara and Delia managed to remove all the muck from Presley’s back. 

_ Just  _ her back.

“You know,” Delia started idly, trying to fill the silence with words. “This reminds me of the time I was in New York City back in my college days.”

“Oh yeah?” Barbara looked at her while wiping away some dirt that was packing a cut above Presley’s right shoulder blade. “Were you washing an ex-jockey there, too?”

“No, it was a ball of fur I found in an alleyway that I thought was a kitten,” Delia said. “I was wrong. It was just a very large rat. I named him Fungus.”

That got a tiny laugh out of Presley, much to Barbara’s pleasant surprise. The laugh, unfortunately, turned into a raspy cough, and Presley raised her hand to cover her mouth.

“Maybe we should have gone to the hospital,” Barbara said worriedly.

“No, it’s okay,” Presley said quickly. “This is normal, trust me.”

“What’s the point of being dead if you’re going to continue to feel pain?” Delia wondered aloud.

“That’s what I’ve been saying this whole time!” Presley said. “Not only that, but there’s a whole ECONOMY for the Dead? What’s that about? I thought being dead was, like, a release from everything! Like, imagine killing yourself because of overbearing economic stress and then you go to the Netherworld and get forced into yet ANOTHER job. Because suicide victims are civil servants down there, you know? I was one of them. I mean, I didn’t kill myself, obviously, but I was, like, this mail girl. I did deliveries and stuff. Got to carry papers around  _ every single day _ . They called me--” She faltered for a moment, sounding embarrassed. “They called me the ‘Pony Express’…”

Delia snorted, and Barbara elbowed her in the ribs.

“Not funny. That’s not funny.” Delia quickly said. 

“Isn’t the Netherworld really big?” Barbara asked, now very curious. She had never actually gone down into the Netherworld before (Lydia and Beetlejuice worried that she or Adam wouldn’t be able to come back out if they did), so she had to rely on stories if she wanted to know what it was like. “I mean, I would assume so since it’s where everyone goes when they die.”

“Oh yeah, it was HUGE,” Presley nodded.

“How did you get around everywhere?” 

“Usually I just walked,” Presley informed her and Delia. She seemed slightly more relaxed now that they had something else to focus on aside from her naked mess of a body. “Sometimes I ran, if I could get my legs to cooperate with me, but my lungs tended to act up if I went anything faster than a jog, which resulted in, you know…”

Barbara and Delia did, in fact, _ not  _ know. By their confused silence, Presley seemed to catch onto this, even when she wasn’t looking at them.

“Hemorrhaging,” Presley specified. “It resulted in hemorrhaging. Lung hemorrhaging, to be specific. That’s why I coughed up blood earlier. I’ve just been calling it chronic hemoptysis. I don’t know if it has an actual name.”

“I think the actual name for that is lung damage,” Delia said.

Presley shrugged. “Anyway, I had a bike, sometimes. If I could find it.”

“You had BIKES in the Netherworld?” Barbara blinked.

“I know right!” Presley said. “It’s basically like the real world except more post-apocalyptic-ish, filled with weird people, and glowing green.”

“So like Florida,” Delia said knowingly, nodding.

Presley laughed again. This time, it didn’t turn into a full fit of bloody coughing. 

“Kinda.”

“Well, we got your back pretty much done,” Barbara said. “We can start disinfecting your cuts in a moment. But your front side…”

“I can do that,” Presley said. 

Barbara decided to at least allow the young jockey to try, just to let her retain a shred of modesty. Presley took a fresh rag (they had already gone through three because the fabric kept getting stained, even after they dunked it in the water) that was wet with soap and began wiping down her chest and stomach. Instantly, her face contorted with pain, but she grit her teeth and kept going. To touch such a heavily bruised area must have been like lighting her nerve endings on fire as if they were the fuses to fireworks. 

For a moment, Barbara morbidly wondered which of Presley’s wounds had been the killing blow. Was it the kick to the back of her head? The stomp in the middle of her stomach? Could her broken ribs have pierced her heart and lungs? When her thigh had been stepped on, did the femur lance through her femoral artery and cause her to bleed out? Did she choke to death on her own blood? Did she die on the track or did she pass on in the hospital, so close to getting help? Maybe she suffered from something like intracerebral hemorrhaging and that killed her?

Barbara had so many different questions that she knew she wouldn’t be getting answers to. But that didn’t stop Delia from asking in her stead.

“What was it like? Racing, I mean. Aside from the whole dying part.”

“Delia!” Barbara hissed.

The muscles in Presley’s back visibly tensed. Her hand froze its process of washing the caking of dried sludge off of her chest and curled into the rag, white-knuckling it and causing dirty water to squeeze out down her skin. Then, she spoke, her words soft and husky.

“It was…”

“Honey, you don’t have to talk about this,” Barbara quickly said, but Presley either didn’t hear her in her trance or ignored her.

“Incredible,” Presley finished anyway. “I always loved horses, even when I was little. I wasn’t ever weird about it like the horse girl stereotype suggests, though. I was just fascinated by them. They were beautiful creatures.

I got into horse racing when I was ten, I think. I specifically remember watching TV in the living room and accidentally leaned on the remote, making it switch channels. And the channel it changed to was playing  _ Seabiscuit.  _ So I sat there, completely entranced with this horse movie because horses were my special interest, and I watched the whole thing, and by the time it was over, I was hooked. And it wasn’t just some childish fixation that would go away after a week and I would become obsessed with dinosaurs next or something- even at that age I  _ knew  _ that was what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a jockey. I wanted to race.”

A ghost of a smile came to her colorless lips. Barbara just barely managed to catch it at the angle she was crouched at beside the tub, but she could also hear it in Presley’s voice when she continued her story. The smile may not have been anywhere near to reaching her eyes, but the contentment towards the past memories was genuine, at least for now.

“I  _ begged  _ my parents for a race horse,” Presley went on. “We lived on a farm- Wormwood Range. I always thought that the name would scare off patrons because it was weird compared to all the other farms in the area--stuff like Babbling Brook Farm and Whispering Meadows and Magnolia Orchard even though magnolias don’t grow in Connecticut--but we got a lot of business. There was apparently tons of oil on our land, so my family was pretty wealthy, but we also did horse riding lessons on the side. And as in ‘we’ I mean me because I did all that. And here’s a tip: don’t be a horseback instructor. You get some of the DUMBEST questions from people. Like, no, Cheryl, the horses do NOT grow the horseshoes themselves! Horses cannot grow metal on their feet!”

Barbara and Delia laughed. Presley cleared her throat, realizing she was jabbering. She got back on track as she also continued the process of washing the front of her body clean.

“Anyway, I begged my parents for a race horse and, of course, they said no. We already had quite a few horses--three appaloosas; one mustang; two arabians, which terrified the young kids who came to learn how to ride, by the way; one Irish draught; one Belgian horse; and one very stubborn Shetland pony--but they weren’t the right kind for racing. But I didn’t argue with them or throw a fit because I was basically bred to be the perfect Southern Belle even though we were in Connecticut, so I would run around the property and pretend I was riding a racehorse.”

Barbara and Delia laughed again. Presley seemed delighted at making them do so because she sounded slightly more confident and less meek when she went on.

“Why I didn’t pretend one of our actual horses was a racehorse, I don’t really know. But I would play that little pretend game for three years, sprinting all around the farm while doing this announcer voice to make it seem like I was being spectated and adored, until I finally got my big break.” She hesitated for a moment, like she was considering stopping there, then went on, “I was walking home from school and one of the neighboring farms was having some problems with a colt. I swear, you could hear that boy screeching for miles. Literally. There was this little hill that I would have to walk up and I heard the screaming before I even saw what was going on. And I just thought to myself, ‘What is going on??’ Because it sounded like someone was gutting their horse alive!

Turns out, this specific colt just really didn’t like his lead and was throwing an absolute fit over it. His poor owner looked so embarrassed and mortified. He was completely fed up with the horse, so when I started asking questions he said to me, ‘You’re that Lind girl, right? The one who lives at Wormwood? You own horses, don’t you? Well, since you’re so interested in him, YOU take him. I don’t want him anywhere near me anymore!’ And then he shoved the halter into my hands. And so I had a new horse!” 

Another pause. She seemed to struggle with her words, the delight of her past memories draining out of her voice and dripping with the grot into the polluted bathwater she was sitting in. Delia pulled the drain yet again to change out the water.

“He was this big, and I mean BIG, steel grey thoroughbred with a pitch black mane and tail and four uneven black socks that kinda made him look like he had been stomping around in the shadows. At least, that’s what my thirteen-year-old brain came up with.”

“Horses can wear socks?” Delia whispered to herself.

That made Presley actually turn to blink at her, then laughed. “Ahh-- no. Socks, they’re-- they’re what we call the markings on a horse’s legs. Because they sorta look like socks.”

“Ohhh,” Delia nodded. “Yeah, I was thinking about something entirely different.”

Presley laughed again, then went on, “He also had, like, this lighter grey freckle pattern on his nose and really pretty bright blue eyes. He was just the most beautiful horse you would ever see. 

When I brought him back to the farm, I once again brought up becoming a jockey to my parents. They said no. Again. But this time I was a tween so I had slightly more guts than when I was ten, so I basically gave them this big business offer in an attempt to sway them; I had been working on it for three years. I probably could have made it on Shark Tank with how good it was! And it was  _ that good _ because I managed to convince them by saying I could get them more money if I became a jockey and won because of the whole gambling thing. And the cash prizes, of course. Also, they could get more publicity. You know how rich people are. So they agreed and got me a trainer to start working.

You would then think I would have had names prepared way ahead of time, what with the whole waiting three years thing for that moment to finally happen, but nope! I cycled through A LOT of name ideas before I finally settled on one. ‘Batteries Not Included,’ ‘Some Assembly Required’, and ‘Whatsit Called’ were some of the show names I considered, which weren’t as funny as I thought they were now that I’m looking back on it. I also thought about ‘None Of Your Business’ because I thought it would sound really funny to tell the people at the derby registrations that when they asked for his name, but then I realized I would probably seem like a smart aleck and that was NOT what I wanted them to think of me, so I ditched that one quickly. In the end, I settled on Peril and his show name was Besides The Dying Fire. I thought it was cool.” Her words caught in her throat for a moment when she said that, fingers clenching, muscles tensing again, voice wavering. She shook her head. “Anyway, I quickly learned why his owner gave him away so willingly. And without a fee. That should have really tipped me off because horses are  _ very valuable _ . But he was the crankiest stallion you would ever meet. He never wanted to follow directions, it took half an hour just to get his equipment on, and he bit  _ hard _ . My trainer got fed up with both of us constantly. Mainly me, though. He did not like me. Anyway! My horse-- it took a lot of work to get him to do just about anything I wanted. And I did  _ everything  _ to get him to cooperate with me. Varied diet, treats, more exercise, extremely expensive tack-- I even,” She laughed slightly. “I even wrote a lullaby for him that I would sing when he’d act up. And that would get through to him, believe it or not. He would calm down and look me in the eyes and I knew, no matter how angry he was, that we would be alright. He was my--” She took a quivering breath, and Barbara realized she was tearing up. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this. Can we talk about something else?”

Barbara snapped out of her listening trance, quickly followed by Delia. They both nodded.

“Of course, honey,” Barbara said. She rushed to find a new topic, not wanting to linger in the silence between the one that was very clearly upsetting Presley. She set her eyes on the bun the young jockey’s hair was done up in. “Can we start washing your hair? It’s kind of a mess.”

Presley reached up to touch her head, then winced, unable to get her arm up all the way. She dropped it back down and nodded, which only resulted in yet another wince.

“Sure.”

Barbara nodded and unraveled the bun. A waterfall of golden-brown, which was starting to look more ginger now that she was looking at it dead on, came tumbling free and spilled down Presley’s back. It was thick, tangled, and chock full of enough oil to power a sports car. Barbara would have rolled up her sleeves if they weren’t already to her shoulders.

Presley had  _ a lot  _ of hair, so much so that Barbara wasn’t sure how all of it even fit into her helmet. It draped far past Presley’s shoulder blades and was naturally curly at the tips, which were slightly more golden-blonde in color than the rest of its gnarled mass, though Barbara didn’t know if that was natural or the work of dye. Clumps of mud were dried in the locks and the entire thing was covered in a fine layer of dirt, which came out in a huge cloud of brown when Presley sneezed. At the same moment, there was a popping sound and a sharp inhale from the young jockey.

“Was that your--?”

“My ribs? Yes.” Presley answered for Barbara. “That happens sometimes.” And then she reached down with slightly quivering hands and pushed one of her dislocated ribs back into its proper place like it was no big deal. “Carry on.”

Barbara looked at her for another worried moment, then turned her attention back to her hair. 

Looking even further than the mud and dust, there was blood. Dried blood was covering just about the entirety of Presley’s lower skull, cementing any hair it managed to snag into one big tacky, pulpy, red nest. It was crusted over parts of her neck and even the back of her ears. But there was also blood streaking up and down her hair in different areas as well, like her scalp and crown. When Barbara tried to pick out locks from the most concerning area, Presley hissed in pain and flinched away.

“Sorry,” Barbara apologized quickly. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. It’s just-- it’s a mess back here.”

“Oh,” Presley whispered.

“Are you tender-headed?” Delia asked.

“She’s got a cut in her head, Delia,” Barbara said.

“Yes, but  _ aside from that _ ,” Delia said back. “If she’s also tender-headed, it could double the discomfort. So be gentle!”

“I am!”

Barbara poked and prodded around Presley’s hair as tenderly as possible, but wasn’t finding much of a give anywhere. At least, not one that wouldn’t hurt Presley. 

There was, however, one alternative.

“Presley, sweetheart,” Barbara said. “How much do you like your hair?”

Presley looked back at her. “What?”

“Well, you see…” Barbara said. “It’s, and I mean this in the nicest way possible, a complete mess back here. It’ll hurt if I try to undo all of this by hand. And even then, you have so much hair that I can’t even see the cut anymore.”

“What are you saying?” Presley asked nervously.

“We’re going to have to cut your hair off,” Barbara told her as gently as possible.

“Oh,” Presley blinked. “Umm. O-okay.”

Barbara nodded at her permission. “I’ll wash it first, then we’ll disinfect your wounds,  _ and then  _ we’ll start cutting. So you have time to prepare yourself.”

Presley gave a small nod. She held perfectly still for Barbara as she dumped cups of water over her head. The streams ran red and brown down her shoulders and back.

Barbara had to be incredibly careful when washing Presley’s hair. Every time her fingers so much as brushed the area where the cut was, Presley would flinch in reaction to the pain. The young jockey’s entire head was extremely sensitive, and Barbara’s fingertips might as well have just been claws because Presley reacted in a way that made it seem like she was getting her brain pulled out every time she was touched, no matter how light it may have been.

Barbara washed as much blood, mud, sweat, oil, and any other grime that may have gotten caught in the locks as much as possible, but there wasn’t a lot she could do with all the mats and tangles. She decided to put hair care to the side for the moment and helped the semi-clean jockey out of the bathtub to dry off so she could get her wounds tended to.

And there was  _ a lot  _ to cover.

“Bad news, kids,” Delia said, flipping through the little book that came with the first-aid kit. “There’s nothing in here that says what to do when you get trampled by horses.”

“I wouldn’t think so,” Barbara said. “And, Delia, maybe avoid bringing up you-know-what.”

Delia looked at her, then at Presley. It dawned on her. 

“Ohhh,” She nodded. “Right! Of course! Got it!” She flicked through a few more pages. “This is useless to us.”

Barbara rolled her eyes in a good-natured way. Presley managed a small smile, but it didn’t go anywhere near her eyes. She looked tired and in pain.

“Delia, did you bring in the Ibuprofen?” Barbara asked.

Delia perked up. “The medicine! Right!” She said. “No. I don’t think regular painkillers are going to do much for all of,” She gestured vaguely, “ _ that.  _ No offense, hun.”

“None taken,” Presley said.

“So, I had a better alternative!”

“Delia, I don’t think your essential oils are going to work in this situation,” Barbara said.

“You never know!” Delia argued. “But that wasn’t what I was referring to. I’ll be right back!” She hurried out of the room in a whirl of purple fabric.

Barbara shook her head in amusement, then looked at Presley. “Having fun being alive yet?” She was trying to joke, hoping to make the young jockey smile again or at least make her more comfortable, but it didn’t seem to go in her favor because Presley’s placid expression did not change.

Presley shrugged. “How did you die? If you don’t mind me asking. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

“I don’t mind,” Barbara assured her, and she wondered if this was just something the Dead (or, ex-Dead, in Presley’s case) did- asked each other about how they died like it was the most normal conversation topic in the whole world. “Me and my husband, Adam, fell through the floorboards of this very house. Who knew the foundation underneath was so hollow! And deep.”

“Oh, wow,” Presley said, then leaned around Barbara to try and see the back of her head. “Did you hit your head or something?”

Barbara opened her mouth, then furrowed her eyebrows and tilted her head. “I…don’t actually know the answer to that. I mean, it didn’t hurt  _ that much _ when we ‘woke up.’” 

Presley raised her brows. “You guys got lucky, then.” She shifted. “Maybe it was a compression fracture? The thing that killed you, I mean.”

“Your guess is as good as mine, kid.”

Delia then entered again, waving two orange pill bottles in her hands. “I got them!”

“And what are they exactly?” Barbara asked.

“Remember when Lydia got her wisdom teeth removed a month ago?”

“Ohhh,” Barbara nodded, understanding.

Delia brandished the bottles to Presley to fill her in. “This one is Amoxicillin,” She raised one. “It’ll help fight any infections. And this one is Tramadol,” She raised the other. “It’s the strongest painkiller we can legally keep in our possession. Probably. Don’t quote me on that, I usually have no idea what I’m talking about half the time.”

Presley giggled softly. “Okay.”

Delia uncapped both bottles and took out one pill each. She then gave Presley the water bottle she had also brought with her and let her swallow down the medicine. 

“Good girl,” Delia said approvingly. “Now to deal with…everything else on you, you Pablo Picaso of a child.”

They delved into the first-aid kit. 

An entire roll of bandages for her arms, legs, slashed sides, and chest, the groove of flesh missing on her left shoulder, and the long, ugly line of oozing red across her crown that Barbara and Delia hadn’t even noticed until they washed all the dirt off… 

Some kind of skin-soothing cream that probably wasn’t meant for bruises but that they were trying anyway for the puffy, indigo-black contusions all around her torso, on her wrist, up and down her back, and spotting her legs… 

…And just about every single disinfectant rags that were in the case for all of the wounds that she had accumulated all over, even in places they hadn’t known  _ could _ be cut without deliberate, creative use of a sharp object (or hooves, in this case) on oneself and a lot of preparatory stretching beforehand.

Fifteen minutes and the basically entire contents of the first-aid kit later, the young jockey seated on the toilet seat before them started looking a little more like a regular teenage girl and a little less like a mafia interrogation survivor who had escaped from the clutches of a couple of beefy guys with names that sounded like pasta, only to immediately be run over by an army of bears. Or horses.

“I was meaning to ask,” Barbara said. “What are these rings around your eyes from?”

“Oh, those are from my riding goggles pressing into my eyes when, you know,” Presley said. “I swear, I thought they were going to pop right out of my head! They bled for a long time, but maybe they won’t anymore! I hope.” 

“I can’t understand this at all,” Delia spoke up, reading in the booklet again. “But I don’t think there’s anything in here to help with coughing up blood and dislocating bones.” She peered at the pages closer, squinting her eyes. “Uh-huh. Yeah. I have no idea what this says.”

“Let me see,” Barbara grabbed it from her, took one look at the pages, and then said, “Delia, you’re reading the Spanish section.”

“Oh!” Delia laughed, smacking the side of her head. “Silly me!”

Barbara couldn’t tell if she was purposely playing dumb to make Presley smile or she was genuinely clueless, with Delia Deetz it could easily be either, but regardless of her intentions behind the way she was acting, it worked because Presley giggled softly. Being funny seemed so effortless for Delia. 

“Feeling any better?” Delia asked Presley.

“Kinda,” Presley answered. 

“Kinda is good! Better than no kinda at all.” Delia nodded.

Barbara laughed slightly. “Now for your hair. I promise you can get dressed after that.”

“I’ve pretty much become desensitized to the nudity at this point,” Presley said.

Another laugh. Barbara grabbed a wet rag and soaked Presley’s damp hair again, hoping that would make the process easier. She didn’t actually know how to properly cut someone’s hair.

“Okay…” Barbara said, looking at the tangled mess on the back of Presley’s head from different angles, like she was a zookeeper evaluating a threatened tiger. “Let’s see what we can do with this…”

She took a comb from one of the drawers and picked at the heavily matted area. Instantly, Presley’s shoulder jolted and she flinched away.

“Sorry! Sorry.” Barbara said. “It’s  _ really _ , ah…intertwined.”

“Nice vocabulary,” Delia commented, her head buried in one of the cabinets. 

Barbara tried to comb Presley’s hair again, but, like last time, Presley recoiled from the pain that must have been flaring through her scalp.

“I think we should just use the razor and go to town on that beast,” Delia put in her two cents, taking out Charles’s electric razor. “I also found a WikiHow article on how to shave someone’s head. It has pictures!”

“Good thinking!” Barbara took the razor from Delia. “Okay, tell me what to do.”

Delia nodded, then began to read from her phone, “‘ _ Shaving your head is an attractive look that you can achieve at home with electric clippers or a razor. Although shaving your own head is easy once you learn how to-- _ ’”

“To the shaving part, please,” Barbara said.

“Right! Let’s see… Oh, here!” Delia began reading again, “ _ ‘ _ **_Clip your hair in the opposite direction of your hair growth._ ** _ Normally, you'd shave your hair in the direction of the grain. However, this isn't necessary with clipping because you won't get as close of a shave as with a razor. Additionally, clipping hair with the grain is really difficult, as it's hard to clip the hair if you're moving the clippers over the top of your hair.’ _ ”

“Oh! Okay, umm…” Barbara rummaged through several drawers before she managed to find a clip. She clipped Presley’s hair back as best as she could. “What next?”

“These are giving me steps for the front of the head… Oh, here!  _ ‘ _ **_Shave from bottom to top when finishing up the back._ ** _ Place your clippers at the nape of your neck. Next, slowly bring the razor up toward your crown. Continue working your way across the back of your hair until you’ve shaved your entire head.’  _ Well, we don’t want to shave her  _ entire  _ head, do we?”

Barbara shook her head.

“Then I guess just stop after that mess is off.”

It was good enough for Barbara, seeing as there was nothing else for them to do. She flicked on the razor and got to shaving.

The ending result was…certainly something.

“Oh. My god.” Delia said, and Barbara smacked her arm.

“What?” Presley blinked up at them nervously.

“It’s definitely a haircut,” Delia offered, and Barbara smacked her again. “I thought you knew how to cut hair?”

“What gave you that impression?” Barbara looked at her sharply.

“Your name!” Delia said as if it should have been obvious. “It’s  _ Barbara! _ You know what it sounds like?  _ Barber!  _ Barbara, barber. It’s just common knowledge!”

“Those two things do not correlate at all!” Barbara shouted. “Like, Lydia sounds like ‘lid’ but I’m not going to use her to cover up my container of leftover casserole!”

“…You got me there.”

As they were light-heartedly bickering, Presley stood up from the toilet seat and looked in the mirror.

What used to be a mane so long and elegant (when not covered in filth) it would make a lion jealous, was now completely gone. Barbara had to cut off all of the excess hair to simply shave the back of Presley’s skull, along with any on the sides just to keep it from looking weird, and the locks were now lying on the ground like severed squid tentacles. All that was left were her sideburns, tiny tufts of what were maybe possibly potentially bangs but Barbara wasn’t too sure at this point, and an unruly thatch of hair on the top of Presley’s head.

They all stared.

“Definitely a haircut,” Presley agreed with Delia’s former statement.

After soaking the gooey cut on the back of Presley’s head with disinfectant, which was still very worrying to Barbara because of how deep it looked, and applying adhesive tape that they hoped would help, Presley was finally able to get dressed. Luckily, Lydia was the same size as her, so the lended clothing seemed to fit nicely. All they were were some undergarments, gym shorts, and a black hoodie- nothing that Lydia would miss. 

While cleaning up the mess leftover from the hour and a half spent in the bathroom, Presley stopped Delia when she took her tarnished jockey uniform out of the sink to throw away.

“Can I keep the helmet and crop at least?” She asked. “Please?”

Delia looked at Barbara, then said, “Can I clean it first?”

Presley nodded. “Okay.”

Delia smiled. “Thank you. Come on, the others will be expecting us.”

And they were. Lydia, Beetlejuice, Charles, and Adam were all patiently waiting downstairs, distracting themselves by watching some random TV show in the living room. Lydia instantly shot up to her feet when Barbara came down.

“Is she alive?” Beetlejuice asked before anyone else could say anything. Lydia smacked him. “What? I’m just saying!”

“Read the room,” Charles said. 

“I see no words on these walls, Chuck.”

“She’s fine,” Barbara said. “Delia is just--” There was shuffling from the top of the staircase. “Oh, nevermind. Here they come now!”

Delia and Presley walked down the stairs. Jaws instantly dropped when Presley came into the light.

“What did you DO TO HER?!” Beetlejuice yelled through cackles. “Oh my GOD! It’s like you glued a caterpillar to her head!”

“We TRIED!” Barbara said.

“You didn’t do a very good job,” Charles said, earning a sharp look from Barbara.

“How did you manage to fuck up SO BADLY?” Beetlejuice asked. “Your name is Barbara!”

“That’s what I said!” Delia said.

“That doesn’t mean I know how to cut hair!!” Barbara yelled.

Through the mayhem, Lydia walked over to Presley, and Presley grabbed onto her hand instantly.

“Nice hair,” Lydia said.

“Nice hoodie,” Presley said back.

“Like it?”

“Yeah. Much more comfortable than my uniform. The tag was SO ITCHY.”

Lydia smiled. “Glad I could one-up your death suit. Now, come on. I’ll show you where you can sleep.”

**Author's Note:**

> don't ask how Pres came back, not even i know. i just wanted her to be apart of the family lol


End file.
